Stupidity Machine

The carbon dioxide molecule was riding along on Industrial Revolution’s expansion of carbon-based energy usage to transportation, war material, agriculture, …

Never Trust a TED-Talker: Rutger Bregman’s “Utopia for Realists”

Another sort-of leftist makes the bestseller list: Dutch journalist/academic/TEDtalker Rutger Bregman’s breezy, pop-sci “Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build …

“Deepwater Horizon” and the Absurd Innocence of Modern Life

There’s nothing like a modern Hollywood film to get the multidimensional nature of modern reality in vivid form – though …

The Banalization of the Apocalypse

For those of you inclined to dismiss social nihilism, consider one estimable left thinker’s recent diary entry: There is, however, …

NATE HAGENS vs. CHARLES C. MANN

The “biography theory” of world politics and culture reduces all social complexity to the lives, works, and influence of a …

PinkerInc’s Folly: pages 340-360

Prefatory Note:  We are heading to a wrap party for this serialized review of Enillusionment Now. All previous respondents and commenters …

PinkerInc’s Folly: Pages 320-340

PREFATORY NOTE” Enillusionment Now has dropped from the best-seller lists, and there are genuine rumblings of liberal discontent with the …

PinkerInc.’s Folly: Pages 280-300

Prefatory Note: The news on the global environment continues to be ever-more alarming, but as Geoff Mann and Joel Wright …

PinkerInc.’s Folly: Pages 260-279

PREFATORY NOTE:  Mayer Hillman, an 86-year old social critic with some impressive measures of actual social effect to his name, …

PinkerInc.’s Folly: Pages 240-259

A. Pinker likes what is happening in Afghanistan, saying that “even in these benighted parts, progress can be seen.” Seen …